pect. I will lie down."

He went into his bedroom and flung himself on the bed, but only to toss
from side to side. In vain he repeated texts of Scripture and scraps
of verse; in vain counted imaginary sheep, or listened to imaginary
clock-tickings. Sleep would not come to him. It was as though he had
reached the crisis of a disease which had been for days gathering force.
"I must have a teaspoonful," he said, "to allay the craving."

Twice he paused on the way to the sitting-room, and twice was he driven
on by a power stronger than his will. He reached it at length, and
opening the cupboard, pulled out what he sought. A bottle of brandy.
With this in his hand, all moderation vanished. He raised it to his
lips and eagerly drank. Then, ashamed of what he had done, he thrust the
bottle back, and made for his room. Still he could not sleep. The taste
of the liquor maddened him for more. He saw in the darkness the brandy
bottle--vulgar and terrible apparition! He saw its amber fluid sparkle.
He heard it gurgle as he poured it out. He smelt the nutty aroma of
the spirit. He pictured it standing in the corner of the cupboard, and
imagined himself seizing it and quenching the fire that burned within
him. He wept, he prayed, he fought with his desire as with a madness. He
told himself that another's life depended on his exertions, that to give
way to his fatal passion was unworthy of an educated man and a reasoning
being, that it was degrading, disgusting, and bestial. That, at all
times debasing, at this particular time it was infamous; that a vice,
unworthy of any man, was doubly sinful in a man of education and a
minister of God. In vain. In the midst of his arguments he found himself
at the cupboard, with the bottle at his lips, in an attitude that was at
once ludicrous and horrible.

He had no cancer. His disease was a more terrible one. The Reverend
James North--gentleman, scholar, and Christian priest--was what the
world calls "a confirmed drunkard".

CHAPTER XV. ONE HUNDRED LASHES.

The morning sun, bright and fierce, looked down upon a curious sight. In
a stone-yard was a little group of persons--Troke, Burgess, Macklewain,
Kirkland, and Rufus Dawes.

Three wooden staves, seven feet high, were fastened together in the form
of a triangle. The structure looked not unlike that made by gypsies to
boil their kettles. To this structure Kirkland was bound. His feet were
fastened with thongs to the base of the