ar. _It is a cross._ Curse not! It
cannot harm you nor me. Dip again, and bring me a few oysters, or my
wife may die."

"I know the form of that cross," said the oyster-man. "It is Spanish.
Many a year ago, no doubt, some high-pooped galleon, running close to
the coast, went ashore on Chincoteague and drifted piecemeal through
the inlet, wider then than now. This mummery, this altar toy, destined
for some Papist mission-house, has lain all these years in the
brackish Sound. Ha! ha! That Issachar the Jew should raise a cross,
and on the Christian's Christmas eve! But it is mine! My tongs, my
vessel, myself brought it aboard!"

He seized the preacher's skinny arm with the ferocity of greed.

"I do not claim it, Issachar. My worship is not of forms and images.
Dip again, and help me to my hut with a few oysters, for I am very
faint. Then all my knowledge and interest in this effigy I will
surrender to you."

"Agreed!" exclaimed the Jew, plunging the tongs to the bottom again
and again, in his satisfaction.

They walked inland across the difficult sands, the Jew carrying the
crucifix jealously. Lights gleamed from a few huts along the level
island. At the meanest hut of all they stopped, and heard within a
baby's cry, to which there was no response. The preacher staggered
back with apprehension. The Jew raised the latch and led the way.

The light of some burning driftwood and dried sea-weed filled the low
roof and was reflected back to a cot, on which a woman lay with a
living child beside her. Something dread and ineffable was conveyed by
that stiffened form. The Jew, familiar with misery and all its
indications, caught the preacher in his arms.

"Levin Purnell," he said, "thy Christmas gift has come. Bear up! There
is no more persecution for thee. She is dead!"

The outcast preacher looked once, wildly, on the woman's face, and
with a cry pressed his hands to his heart. The Jew laid him down upon
a miserable pallet, and for a few moments watched him steadily.
Neither sound nor motion revealed the presence of the cold spark of
life. The husband's heart was broken.

"Poor wretch!" exclaimed the Jew. "Mismated couple; in death as
obstinate as in life. Lie there together, befriended in the closing
hour by the Jew of Chincoteague, a present--to-morrow's Christmas--for
thy neighbors of this Christian island!"

He stirred the fire. Death had no terrors for him, who had seen it by
land and sea, in brawls and shipwre