n' Mate Snow
he got there first."

The light went out in the room; I heard a chair knocked over, and then
Minister Malden's voice: "God forgive me! God forgive me!"

I ran, sprawling headlong through the shrubs.

Out in the dark of Lovett's Court I found people all about me, the
congregation, let out, hobbling and skipping and jostling shoreward, a
curious rout. Others were there, not of the church; Kibby Baker, the
atheist, who had heard the news through the church window where he
peeped at the worshipers; Miah White's brother, the ship-calker,
summoned by his sister; a score of others, herding down the dark wind.
At the shore street, folks were coming from the Westward. It was strange
to see them all and to think it was only a heathen dying.

Or, perhaps, it wasn't so strange, when one remembered Minister Malden
coming down the years with that light in his eyes, building his slow
edifice, like one in Israel prophesying the coming of the Messiah.

I shall never forget the picture I saw that night from the deck of the
Chinaman's scow. The water here in the lee was as smooth as black glass,
save for the little ground-swell that rocked the outer end of the craft.
The tide was rising; the grounded end would soon be swimming. There were
others on the deck with me, and more on the dock overhead, their faces
picked out against the sky by the faint irradiations from the lighted
shanty beneath. And over and behind it all ran the tumult of the
elements; behind it the sea, where it picked up on the Bight out there
beyond our eyes; above it the wind, scouring the channels of the crowded
roofs and flinging out to meet the waters, like a ravening and
disastrous bride.

Mate Snow stood by the counter in the little cabin, his close-cropped
head almost to the beams, his voice, dry austere, summoning the Chinaman
to repentance. "Verily, if a man be not born again, he shall not enter
into the Kingdom of Heaven." His eyes skipped to the door.

"And to be born again," he went on with a hint of haste, "you must
confess, Yen Sin, and have faith. That is enough. The outer and inner
manifestations--confession and faith."

"Me, Mista Yen Sin--confessee?"

A curious and shocking change had come over the Chinaman in the little
time I had been away. He lay quite motionless on his couch, with a bit
of silken tapestry behind his head, like a heathen halo protecting him
at last. He was more alive than he had been, precisely because the life