ll the passion of his soul that the
High Priest would accept his humble sacrifice. The great hope that
perhaps he would be considered worthy to imitate, even in the feeblest
manner, the atonement that his Master had made was filling him and
lending his arm an unnatural strength. Behind him the waters surged
and the piling logs boomed threateningly. But to Duncan there was no
menace in the sound. It brought to his mind the words of his favourite
psalm, as Peter McNabb sang it in the little church by the river,

"The Lord's voice on the waters is;
The God of Majesty
Doth thunder--"

"Oh, my Father, my Father!" he was praying with passionate fervour, as
he struggled with the stubborn beam, "accept this poor sacrifice, and
may Donal' and my father's Glen be saved!"

The answer came in a thunderous roar. Like a wild animal let loose,
the wall of lumber leaped up and hurled itself forward. It caught the
old man as if he had been a feather and flung him away into the
whirling blackness. For an instant his white hair shone out like a
snowflake on the dark river, for an instant only, and then the great
billow of liberated water came roaring forward and swept over him on
its way down the valley.

XVI

THE COVENANT RENEWED

The party from the village which arrived at the Narrows, armed with
lanterns, cant-hooks and poles, only to find the jam broken, searched
all night for the man who had saved their lives at the sacrifice of his
own. The news of the heroic act and the averted disaster spread
swiftly, and all night long lights wandered up and down and shout
answered shout across the dark water.

There were many very sorrowful hearts among the searchers, but none so
heavy as was borne by an old man who kept apart from the crowd. He
stumbled along in a bewildered fashion over rocks and underbrush, his
cap gone, his grey hair dishevelled by the wind. He paused often to
peer over the swollen waters, and Peter McNabb's heart was smitten with
pity as he passed him once and heard him whisper, "Duncan, lad, whaur
are ye?"

And it was Andrew Johnstone who found him. Just as the first grey
light of the morning stole in at the eastern doorway of the valley he
came upon him, lying peacefully beneath the overhanging willows, beside
the churchyard. It seemed fitting that Duncan Polite should have found
a harbour in the shelter of his Zion, the place that had been the
centre of all his hopes.

They covered