sible that magic changes can go on, and yet I
cannot understand all these things in the least."

For answer, the reverend gentleman shrugged his shoulders almost sourly.

"Gentlemen," said Colonel Singelsby, turning abruptly upon Sandy's
escort, "let me ask you is this a certain man whom I used to know as
Sandy Graff?"

One of the men nodded his head.

"And will you tell me," said he, "another thing? Will you kindly tell me
where you are taking him?"

"We are about to take him," said the man, looking steadily at the
Colonel as he answered--"we are about to take him to the outskirts of
the First Kingdom."

At the answer Colonel Singelsby actually fell back a pace in his
amazement. It was almost as though a blow had fallen upon him. "The
outskirts of the First Kingdom?" said he. "Did I understand you? The
outskirts of the First Kingdom? Surely there is some mistake here! It is
not possible that this man, who died only yesterday, filthy and polluted
with iniquity, stinking in the nostrils of God with ten thousand
indulged and gratified lusts--it is not possible that you intend taking
him to that land, passing by me, who all my life have lived to my best
endeavors in love to God and my neighbor?"

It was the voice of his minister that broke the answer. "Yes, they do,"
said he, sharply; "that is just what they do mean. They do mean to take
him, and they do mean to leave us, for such is the law in this dreadful
place. We, the children of light, are nothing, and they, the fuel of
hell, are everything. Have I not been telling you so?"

Colonel Singelsby had almost forgotten the presence of his acquaintance.
He felt very angry at his interference, and somehow he could no longer
govern his anger as he used to do. He turned upon him and fixed him with
a frown, and then he observed for the first time that a little crowd had
begun gathering, and now stood looking on, some curious and unsmiling,
some grinning. The Colonel drew himself to his height, and looked
haughtily about him. They who grinned began laughing. And now, at last,
it was come Colonel Singelsby's turn to feel as Sandy Graff had felt--as
though all that was happening to him was happening in some hideous
nightmare dream. As in a dream, the balancing weights of reasoning and
morality began to melt before the heat of that which burned within; as
in a dream, the uncurbed inner motives began to strive furiously. Then a
sudden fierce anger, quite like the savage irr