ed
feet above the roof, he had achieved a dizzy height of perhaps six feet,
on the summit of a stage-property mountain, where he stood beside the
Deacon Militant, his view of the surrounding plain cut off by
papier-mache clouds, and facing a foul fiend, to whom the Deacon
Militant confided that here was a candidate to be tested and qualified.
Whereupon the foul fiend remarked "Ha, ha!" and bade them bind him to
the Plutonian Thunderbolt and hurl him down to the nether world. The
thunderbolt was a sort of toboggan on rollers, for which there was a
slide running down presumably to the nether world, above mentioned.

The hoodwink was removed, and Stevens looked about him, treading warily,
like one on the top of a tower; the great height of the mountain made
him giddy. Obediently he lay face downward on the thunderbolt, and
yielded up his wrists and ankles to fastenings provided for them.

"They're not going to lower him with those cords, are they?"

It was a stage-whisper from the darkness which spake thus.

"Oh, I guess it's safe enough!" said another, in the same sort of
agitated whisper.

"Safe!" was the reply. "I tell you, it's sure to break! Some one stop
'em--"

To the heart of the martyred Stevens these words struck panic. But as he
opened his mouth to protest, the catastrophe occurred. There was a snap,
and the toboggan shot downward. Bound as he was, the victim could see
below him a brick wall right across the path of his descent. He was
helpless to move; it was useless to cry out. For all that, as he felt in
imagination the crushing shock of his head driven like a battering-ram
against this wall, he uttered a roar such as from Achilles might have
roused armed nations to battle. And even as he did so, his head touched
the wall, there was a crash, and Stevens lay safe on a mattress after
his ten-foot slide, surrounded by fragments of red-and-white paper which
had lately been a wall. He was pale and agitated, and generally done
for; but tremendously relieved when he had assured himself of the
integrity of his cranium. This he did by repeatedly feeling of his head,
and looking at his fingers for sanguinary results. As Amidon looked at
him, he repented of what he had done to this thoroughly maltreated
fellow man. After the Catacombs scene, which was supposed to be
impressive, and some more of the "secret" work, everybody crowded about
Stevens, now invested with the collar and "jewel" of Martyrhood, and
laughed,