would
rather not go without mother, if you please." And the poor little
fellow began to cry piteously.

Here was a catastrophe! The fabric of joyous anticipation which the
father had been painfully building up within his child's breast had
collapsed completely, and in a moment, when he found that they were
"going without mother!" Gaunt argued and reasoned with the little
fellow for a full half-hour, taxing his ingenuity to its utmost extent
to recover the advantage he had lost, but it was all unavailing; to this
poor child it seemed that heaven itself could not be heaven "without
mother." His father was fast giving way to despair when a brilliant
idea shot through the childish brain.

"Father," he exclaimed suddenly, looking up with renewed hope, "cannot
God make the Malays not kill us?"

"Certainly He can, if He chooses," was the ready answer.

"Then let us ask Him," was the triumphant rejoinder. "I am quite sure
He will let us wait and go all together if we tell Him we would rather."

What could the father do but acquiesce in a request founded upon such
perfect trust in the love and mercy of the Almighty? Indeed, it was no
sooner made than he wondered how it was that he had been so utterly
faithless as never to have thought of it himself. So he forthwith
offered up, audibly, just such a petition as the child had suggested,
taking care to clothe it in language which the little fellow could fully
comprehend; and, though it must be admitted that the prayer was begun
more to satisfy the child than from any feeling or belief that it would
be answered, yet, as Gaunt proceeded, with all the earnestness of which
he was capable, hope revived in his heart, and his conscience began to
rebuke him for his practical infidelity.

The prayer concluded, Percy expressed himself as perfectly happy and
satisfied; but it distressed his father not a little to find that the
child's thoughts now persistently turned in a direction precisely
opposite to that in which he wished them to incline; over and over and
over again did Gaunt strive to rekindle the little fellow's enthusiasm
about heaven, but it would not do; life, not death, was what the child
was now looking forward to; and all his father's most earnest
exhortations failed to elicit from him anything beyond the question:

"When do you think they will come and set us free, father?"

"I do not know that they _will_ set us free, dear boy; it may not be
God's will," was th