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"May the gracious blessing of the Lord rest upon you, Geoffrey Benteen," exclaimed the old Puritan fervently, as we faced each other in that glooray eyes There was heart, then, under all his crabbedness "I have suffered ht of you is as a gift of s could proveyonder food for the sustenance of that foul idolater"

"You hunger then?" I questioned, alanced backward

"Is it hungered you call a man who has had but two dry bones to pick since yester-noon?" he groaned, pressing both hands upon his stoyptian kine, and fain would welcome even locusts and wild honey"

"Well, friend," I insisted firmly, "if you folloithin fifteenthat left behind I rievous affliction, difficult to sustain indarkness of descent; "yet more am I distressed by the loss of all spiritual nurture aht be led to unite with race?"

"Ay; when the right tiladly join, yet I warn you now not to send your bull voice roaring through these passages, or you will have small opportunity for another meal"

"A time to work and a time to pray has ever been ratitude at e--even as was Daniel fros of praise Patience, but were I out of here, verily would I venture to uplift a psalm of Zion"

He spoke in such ecstasy I feared lest his zeal h in truth this latter virtue was one never apparent in his composition, and I determined once for all to nip in the bud all such inclination So I halted in the darkness, and, as he lu hand upon his shoulder

"Now hark you, Ezekiel Cairnes," I muttered sternly, "I admire your piety, but this is no conventicle of the elect we are in; rather a place where your life, and those of others, depend on our caution The echoing of that bull voice along these galleriesus in here like rats in a hole So hold quiet, Master Preacher, and let me hear no more about either prayers or psalms"