which,
though unseen, Mark and his companions with the guide were gazing
anxiously at their foes). "Give me the torch."

The soldier seized the light and advanced quickly towards the opening.
Another minute and all must have been revealed. A feeling of despair
took possession of Ravonino's breast and he gave vent to an involuntary
sigh.

The sound reached the ear of the soldier with the torch and for a moment
arrested him, but, thinking probably that the sound was in his
imagination, he again advanced. The case was now desperate. Just then
a gleam of light flashed into the mind of Hockins. Next moment, to the
consternation of his comrades and the guide, a strain of the sweetest
music floated softly in the air!

The soldiers stood still--spell-bound. It was not an unfamiliar air,
for they had often heard the hated Christians sing it, but the sweet,
liquid--we might almost say tiny--tones in which it was conveyed, were
such as had never before reached their ears or even entered their
imaginations. It was evident from their countenances that the soldiers
were awe-stricken. The seaman noted this. He played only a few bars,
and allowed the last notes of his flageolet to grow faint until they
died away into absolute silence.

For a minute or two the soldiers stood rooted to the spot, gazing up
into the roof of the cave as if expecting a renewal of the sounds. Then
they looked solemnly at each other. Without uttering a word they turned
slowly round, retreated on tip-toe as they came, and finally
disappeared.

We need hardly say that the astonishment of the people in the cave at
the mode of their deliverance from the threatened danger was intense.

When the torches were relighted the men and women assembled round
Ravonino with looks little less solemn than those of the soldiers who
had just taken their departure.

"Surely," said the handsome young man whom we have already introduced,
"surely God has wrought a miracle and sent an angel's voice for our
deliverance."

"Not so, Laihova," replied Ravonino, with a slight smile. "We are too
apt to count everything that we fail to understand a miracle. God has
indeed sent the deliverance, but through a natural channel."

"Yet we see not the channel, Ravoninohitriniony," said Laihova's
queen-like sister, Ramatoa.

"True, Ramatoa. Nevertheless I can show it to you. Come, Hockins," he
added in English, "clear up the mystery to them."

Thus bidden, our seaman