ith orders to enter
your meeting `_as a Christian_,' take note of your names, and report
them to him!"

There was a tendency on the part of some to shrink into the background
on hearing this.

"Now," continued Soa, "I have come to obey only part of his orders. I
have come, _as a Christian_, to warn you of the dangers that surround
you. The Queen is exceeding mad against you. It will be your wisest
course to refrain from meeting together just now, and rest content with
worshipping in your own homes. But let not this distress you, my
friends. The God whom we love is able to turn darkness into light and
to make crooked things straight. Neither let it break up our meeting
just now. We are safe at present. Let us get out the Word and enjoy
the worship of our Saviour while we may."

There were murmurs of assent and satisfaction at the close of this brief
address, and one of the young men, with grave--almost mysterious--looks,
took up a small spade and went towards that part of the wall where
Ravonino sat. The latter rose to let the young men get at a particular
spot, which was marked on the wall with a small--almost imperceptible--
red square. Here, after turning up a few spadefuls of earth, he struck
upon a stone. Lifting it, he disclosed a hole about a foot square. The
old man who presided at the meeting thrust his hands into this hole and
gently lifted out a thick volume, which he laid reverently upon a flat
rock that formed a sort of natural table in front of him.

This was "the Word" to which reference had been made--an old,
much-soiled and worn Malagasy Bible, which had been buried there, so
that, whatever might become of its Christian owners, it might escape
being found and condemned to the flames, as so many of its fellows had
been.

It was a curious Bible this, in more respects than one. In Madagascar
the Bible was printed first in sections by the natives, under the
superintendence of the missionaries; these sections got scattered, for
teaching purposes, and various editions of different sizes were printed
at different times. The original owner--if we may not call him
fabricator--of the Bible, now referred to as having been dug up in the
cave, must, in his desire to possess the Word of God complete, have been
at considerable pains to secure every fragment and leaf that came in his
way, and then had them all bound together. A clasp of leather and a
European hook-and-eye fastened the edges. The di