only to bend down our ear and listen.

One night, about a week after the overthrow of his tyrant master, Miles
was seated on the hard floor of his cell, leaning against the wall, with
his knees drawn up and his face in his hands--his usual attitude when
engaged in meditation after a hard day's work.

"I wouldn't mind so much," he murmured, "if I only saw the faintest
prospect of its coming to an end, but to go on thus from day to day,
perhaps year to year, is terrible. No, that cannot be; if we cannot
escape it won't be long till the end comes. (A pause.) The end!--the
end of a rope with a noose on it is likely to be _my_ end, unless I
burst up and run a-muck. No, no, Miles Milton, don't you think of that!
What good would it do to kill half-a-dozen Arabs to accompany you into
the next world? The poor wretches are only defending their country
after all. (Another pause.) Besides, you deserve what you've got for
so meanly forsaking your poor mother; think o' that, Miles, when you
feel tempted to stick your lance into the Mahdi's gizzard, as Molloy
would have said. Ah! poor Molloy! I fear that I shall never see you
again in this life. After giving the Mahdi and his steed such a
tremendous heave they would be sure to kill you; perhaps they tortured
you to--"

He stopped at this point with an involuntary shudder.

"I hope not," he resumed, after another pause. "I hope we may yet meet
and devise some means of escape. God grant it! True, the desert is
vast and scorching and almost waterless--I may as well say foodless too!
And it swarms with foes, but what then? Have not most of the great
deeds of earth, been accomplished in the face of what seemed
insurmountable difficulties? Besides--"

He paused again here, and for a longer time, because there came suddenly
into his mind words that had been spoken to him long ago by his mother:
"With God _all things_ are possible."

"Yes, Miles," he continued, "you must make up your mind to restrain your
anger and indignation, because it is useless to give vent to them.
That's but a low motive after all. Is it worthy of an intelligent man?
I get a slap in the face, and bear it patiently, because I can't help
myself. I get the same slap in the face in circumstances where I _can_
help myself, and I resent it fiercely. Humble when I _must_ be so;
fierce when I've got the power. Is not this unmanly--childish--humbug?
There is no principle here. Principle! I do believe