ered Miles, in a
desponding tone. "At first I thought that Mohammed was our friend, but
he has treated me so badly that I can think so no longer."

"Don't you think he may be doing that to blind his followers as to his
friendship?" said Moses; "for myself, I can't help thinkin' he must be
grateful for what you did, Miles."

"I only wish you had not touched my rifle that day," said Rattling Bill,
fiercely--being fatigued and out of temper--"for the blackguard would
have bin in `Kingdom come' by this time. There's _no_ gratitude in an
Arab. I have no hope at all now."

"My hope is in God," said Stevenson.

"Well, mate, common-sense tells me that that _should_ be our best ground
of hope," observed Molloy; "but common experience tells me that the
Almighty often lets His own people come to grief."

"God _never_ lets 'em come to grief in the sense that you mean,"
returned the marine. "If He kills His people, He takes them away from
the evil to come, and death is but a door-way into glory. If he sends
grief and suffering, it is that they may at last reach a higher state of
joy."

"Pooh! according to that view, _nothing_ can go wrong with them that you
call His people," said Simkin, with contempt.

"Right you are, comrade," rejoined Stevenson; "_nothing_ can go wrong
with us; _nothing_ can separate us from the love of God which is in
Christ Jesus our lord; and _you_ may be one of `_us_' this minute if you
will accept God's offer of free salvation in Christ."

Silence followed, for Simkin was too angry, as well as worn out, to give
his mind seriously to anything at that time, and the others were more or
less uncertain, as to the truth of what was advanced.

Sleep, profound and dreamless, soon banished these and all other
subjects from their minds. Blessed sleep! so aptly as well as
beautifully styled, "Tired Nature's sweet restorer." That great host of
dusky warriors--some unquestionably devout, many cruel and relentless,
not a few, probably, indifferent to everything except self, and all bent
on the extermination of their white-skinned foes,--lay down beside their
weapons, and shared in that rest which is sent alike to the just and to
the unjust, through the grand impartiality, forbearance, and love of a
God whom many people apparently believe to be a "respecter of persons!"

A few days later the little army came to the edge of a range of hills,
beyond which lay the plains of the vast Nubian desert. At night