t of the crowd and hurried away. As for
the wretched madman, in his raging fury, it was not the men who had
forbidden him heaven whom he strove to rend and tear limb from limb, but
poor, innocent, harmless Sandy Graff. The crowd swayed and jostled this
way and that, and as madness begets madness, the curses that fell from
one pair of lips found an echo in curses that leaped from others. Sandy
shrunk back appalled before the hell-blast that breathed upon him, and
he felt his wife clutch him closer. Only two of those that were there
stood unmoved; they were the two men who acted as Sandy's escort. As the
tide of madness seemed to swell higher, they calmly stepped forward and
crossed their staves before their charge. There was something in their
action full of significance for those who knew. Instantly the crowd
melted away like snow under a blast of fire. Had there not been two men
present more merciful than the rest, it is hard to say what terrible
thing might not have happened to Colonel Edward Singelsby--deaf and dumb
and blind to everything but his own rage. These two clutched him by the
arms and dragged him back.

"God, man!" they cried, "what are you doing? Do you not see they are
angels?"

They dragged him back to a bench that stood near, and there held him,
whilst he still beat the air with his fist and cried out hoarse curses,
and even as they so held him, two other men came--two men dark, silent,
sinister--and led him away.

Then the other and his wife and his two escorts passed by and out of the
gate of the town, and away towards the mountain that stood still and
blue in the distance.

* * * * *

_So far I read, and then I could bear to read no more, but placed my
hand upon the open page of the book. "What is this dreadful thing?" I
cried. "Is, then, a man punished for truth and justice and virtue and
righteousness? Is it, then, true that the evil are rewarded, and that
the good are punished so dreadfully?"_

_Then the man who held the book spoke again. "Take away thy hand and
read," said he._

_Then I took away my hand, and read as he bade me, and found these
words:_

_"How can God fill with His own that which is already filled by man?
First it must be emptied before it may be filled with the true good of
righteousness and truth, of humility and love, of peace and joy. O thou
foolish one who judgest but from the appearance of things, how long will
it be before thou can