and Portuguese. But she
has gone on her way out of sight.'

'She has done some work here,' I said.

'Yes,' he said, 'Angel or Saint, Faith Healer or Revenante from
Paradise, she has worked wonders here. Do you know, there is a
simple native cure I have ever so much faith in? It comes from
the root of a tree. Have not some men and women the same sort of
virtue in their wills and hands that trees have in their roots? I
seem to see men and women such as Father John of Kronstadt and
this my Saint Lucy of the Ship even as trees walking.

The outstanding virtue of my patroness was surely in her blossom,
and in the fruit that blossom can yet bring forth. "As the apple-tree among
the trees of the wood" I found her. I sat down under her shadow for
those moments of time. And now, and all my days of grace, will her fruit
be sweet to my taste.'

THE BLACK DEATH

This is a story of a voyage home. The boat was one of the finest
on the line and we were not overcrowded. We had wonderful weather
that trip, brilliant sunshine relieved by a fresh little breeze
that kept its place, doing its duty without taking too much upon
itself, or making itself obnoxious. In the third-class we were
quiet on the whole, and what is called well-behaved, though
neither with millennial serenity nor millennial sobriety.

A red-cheeked gentleman took a red-cheeked married lady and her
child under his vigilant protection. Two or three Rhodesians and
Jo'burgers enriched the bar with faithful fondness. Cards and
sweeps on the run of the boat and the selling of sweep-tickets
these all stimulated the circulation of savings. Hues of language
vied with hues of sunset not seldom of an eventide.

Life was not so very thrilling on that voyage, the treading of
'border-land dim 'twixt vice and virtue' is apt to be rather a
dull business.

There was no such incident as that which stirred us on another
voyage the taking of a carving knife to the purser by a drunkard.
On the other hand there was no unusual battle-noise of spiritual
combat such as may have quickened the pulses of one or two of the
boats the year of the English Mission.

We were middling, and dull at that, on the "Sluys Castle," till
we reached Madeira. Then the description I have given of our
voyage ceases to apply. The two or three days after that were
exciting enough to one or two passengers at any rate.

James Carraway had come down from Kimberley, he told me. He
was a spare, slig