jumped up
from his seat, grasping it with a great clutch altogether painful to
bear, while he dragged me to the light and looked at me with that
curious expression I had noticed when first I met him in the room.

"You're a sound plank of a boy," he said: "shake my hand, young 'un,
shake it hearty; go on, don't you think I mind; shake it right so, you
beauty of a boy!"

What else he would have said or done, what new token of his repulsive
favour he would have bestowed on me, I know not; but his wild antics
were cut short by the sound of firing, rapid and oft repeated, which
came to us from the shore of the cove below. At the first report he let
go my hand and went to his window, from which he drew the curtain, so
that I saw the whole bay lit with silver light from a full-risen moon,
and the distant peaks as grim beacons above a land of rest; a land
which once, perchance, flowered with exotic luxuriance, but which now
wore the snow-silk mantle that had fallen upon countless centuries of
its past. Yet the whole glory and enhancement of the perfect peace were
for the moment ruined, for out on the snow there was a hungry crowd of
starving souls, crying, I doubt not, for bread; and those to whom they
cried answered them with their muskets, dyeing the glittering white
with many a red stream, bringing many a hungered wretch to his last
sleep in the frozen night of death. And out over the silence of the
hills the cries for mercy rang as in bitterness to God, the dreadful
cries of the weak, down trodden beneath the feet of those who knew not
God, the last scream of perishing souls, the sobs of strong men in
their agony. In vain I closed my ears, shut out the sight from my eyes.
The picture came to me again and again, the sound of the voices would
not be hushed, and in turn I cried to Black--

"For God's sake, help those men, if you have anything but the instincts
of a brute in you!"

He shrugged his shoulders defiantly. "What am I to do?" he asked.

"Stop the devil's work, and give the men bread, as I've just given you
your life!"

There was a pause before he answered me, and I could see that an old
nature and a new impulse fought within him. He did not give me any
direct answer to my earnest appeal, but he snatched a rifle from a case
and said--

"Take that pistol, and come on; you've fooled me once, and we'll make
it even numbers. But it ain't as easy as cutting cheese, and there's
blood to let."

I followed him dow