incapable of being shut, and
he entertained a fear that poor Antonio's tongue would, ere long, be
dried up at the roots.

At last a thought occurred to our hero, which he promulgated to Disco
one morning as they were seated at breakfast on the floor of their hut.

"It seems to me, Disco," he said, after a prolonged silence, during
which they had been busily engaged with their knives and wooden spoons,
"that illness must be sent sometimes, to teach men that they give too
little of their thoughts to the future world."

"Werry true, sir," replied Disco, in that quiet matter-of-course tone
with which men generally receive axiomatic verities; "we _is_ raither
given to be swallered up with this world, which ain't surprisin'
neither, seein' that we've bin putt into it, and are surrounded by it,
mixed up with it, steeped in it, so to speak, an' can't werry well help
ourselves."

"That last is just the point I'm not quite so sure about," rejoined
Harold. "Since I've been lying ill here, I have thought a good deal
about forgetting to bring a Bible with me, and about the meaning of the
term Christian, which name I bear; and yet I can't, when I look honestly
at it, see that I do much to deserve the name."

"Well, I don't quite see that, sir," said Disco, with an argumentative
curl of his right eyebrow; "you doesn't swear, or drink, or steal, or
commit murder, an' a many other things o' that sort. Ain't that the
result o' your being a Christian."

"It may be so, Disco, but that is only what may be styled the _don't_
side of the question. What troubles me is, that I don't see much on the
_do_ side of it."

"You says your prayers, sir, don't you?" asked Disco, with the air of a
man who had put a telling question.

"Well, yes," replied Harold; "but what troubles me is that, while in my
creed I profess to think the salvation of souls is of such vital
importance, in my practice I seem to say that it is of no importance at
all, for here have I been, for many weeks, amongst these black fellows,
and have never so much as mentioned the name of our Saviour to them,
although I have been telling them no end of stories of all kinds, both
true and fanciful."

"There's something in that sir," admitted Disco. Harold also thought
there was so much in it that he gave the subject a great deal of earnest
consideration, and finally resolved to begin to tell the negroes Bible
stories. He was thus gradually led to tell them that "old, old