could do for him."

"But," said Father Bates, "you've not said what it was that you saw."

"Padre," said Dan; "that poor, poor fellow, who loomed to the Kaffirs
like a great and merciful god, he was a leper as white as snow!"

"Holy saints defend us!" The Father made a startled motion of
crossing himself, staring at Dan's lean, somber face in a blankness
of consternation. "So that's what it was, then! A leper!"

"That's what it was," said Dan. "I've seen it before in the East."

"He said," continued the Father "he said he had no use for my blasted
cant. And he hadn't, he hadn't! He knew more than I."

X

MISS PILGRIM'S PROGRESS

The double windows of the big office overlooked the quays of
Nikolaieff and the desk was beside them; so that the vice-consul had
only to turn his head to see from his chair the wide river and its
traffic, with the great grain-steamers, like foster-children
thronging at the breast of Russia, waiting their turn for the
elevators, and the gantries of the shipyards standing like an iron
filigree against the pallor of the sky. The room was a large one,
low-ceilinged, and lighted only upon the side of the street; so that
a visitor, entering from the staircase, looked as from the bottom of
a well of shadow across the tables where the month-old American
newspapers were set forth to the silhouette of the vice-consul at his
roll-top desk against his background of white daylight.

Mr. Tim Waters, American citizen in difficulties, leaned upon the top
of the desk and pored absorbedly across the head of his country's
representative at the scene beyond the window. A tow-boat with a
flotilla of lighters was at work in midstream; there was a flash of
white foam at her forefoot, and her red-and-black funnel trailed a
level scarf of smoke across the distance. It was a sketch done
vigorously in strong color, and he broke off the halting narrative of
his troubles to watch if with profound unconscious interest.

Selby, the vice-consul, shifted impatiently in his chair. He was a
small, dyspeptic, short-sighted man, and he was endeavoring under
difficulties to give the impression that he had no time to spare.

"Well," he snapped; "go on. You were walking peaceably along the
street, you said. What comes next?"

Tim Waters turned mild eyes upon him, withdrawing them from the
tow-boat with patient reluctance.

"There was one o' them dvorniks" (doorkeepers), he resumed in a voice
of silky softness. "He