here was a God, I should have said yes, although I
should have been a bit doubtful. Perhaps I should have thought that
there was some great Force which brought all that we see into being,
and then I should have said that, if this great Force were intelligent,
He'd made an awful mess of things, that He'd found the Universe too big
a thing to manage. But I didn't know; anyhow, the thought of God, the
fact of God, hadn't troubled me, neither had I thought much about
myself in a deeper way.

'Sometimes, when my pals were killed, I wondered in a vague way what
had become of them, and whether they were really dead; but there was
nothing clear or definite in my mind. But that night, while listening
to that man, I woke up to the fact that there was a God; it came to me
like a flash of light. I seemed to know that there was an Almighty
Power Who was behind everything,--thinking,--controlling. Then I was
staggered.'

'Staggered? How?' I asked.

'He said that a Man called Jesus Christ told us what God was
like,--showed us by His own life and death. I expect I was a bit
bewildered, for I seemed to see more than his words conveyed.'

He did not seem excited, he spoke quite calmly, although there was a
quiver in his voice which showed how deeply he was moved, and his eyes
glowed with that wonderful new light which made him seem like a new
man. That he had experienced something wonderful, was evident. What I
and thousands of others regarded as a commonplace, something which we
had heard from our childhood, and which, I am afraid, did not hold us
very strongly, was to him a wonderful reality, the greatest, the
divinest thing in the world.

'I got a New Testament,' he went on, 'and for days I did nothing but
read it. I think I could repeat those four Gospels. Man, it's the
most wonderful thing ever known,--of course it is! Why----'

At that moment a change came over his face. It was as though he were
attacked by great pain, as though indeed his body were torn with agony.
His fists were clenched and quivering, his body became rigid, his face
drawn and bloodless.

'Hark, what's that?'

'I hear nothing.'

'Yes, but listen--there!'

It was a curious cry I heard; it sounded partly like the cry of a
seagull, mingled with the wail of a wounded animal. It was repeated
once, twice, and then there was a laugh.

'I've heard that before, somewhere. Where?--where? It's back behind
the black wall!'

I looked, and saw