you
what a liar is. I knew a liar once--a little boy who lived in Cape
Town, in Short Market Street. His mother and I sat together one day,
discoursing about our souls.

"'Here, Sampson,' said his mother, 'go and buy sixpence of meiboss from
the Malay round the corner.'

"When he came back she said: 'How much have you got?'

"'Five,' he said.

"He was afraid if he said six and a half she'd ask for some. And, my
friends, that was a lie. The half of a meiboss stuck in his throat and
he died and was buried. And where did the soul of that little liar go
to, my friends? It went to the lake of fire and brimstone. This brings
me to the second point of my discourse.

"What is a lake of fire and brimstone? I will tell you, my friends,"
said Bonaparte condescendingly. "The imagination unaided cannot conceive
it: but by the help of the Lord I will put it before your mind's eye.

"I was travelling in Italy once on a time; I came to a city called Rome,
a vast city, and near it is a mountain which spits forth fire. Its name
is Etna. Now, there was a man in that city of Rome who had not the fear
of God before his eyes, and he loved a woman. The woman died, and he
walked up that mountain spitting fire, and when he got to the top he
threw himself in at the hole that is there. The next day I went up.
I was not afraid; the Lord preserves His servants. And in their hands
shall they bear thee up, lest at any time thou fall into a volcano. It
was dark night when I got there, but in the fear of the Lord I walked to
the edge of the yawning abyss, and looked in. That sight--that sight, my
friends, is impressed upon my most indelible memory. I looked down into
the lurid depths upon an incandescent lake, a melted fire, a seething
sea; the billows rolled from side to side, and on their fiery crests
tossed the white skeleton of the suicide. The heat had burnt the flesh
from off the bones; they lay as a light cork upon the melted, fiery
waves. One skeleton hand was raised upward, the finger pointing to
heaven; the other, with outstretched finger, pointing downward, as
though it would say, 'I go below, but you, Bonaparte, may soar above.' I
gazed; I stood entranced. At that instant there was a crack in the lurid
lake; it swelled, expanded, and the skeleton of the suicide disappeared,
to be seen no more by mortal eye."

Here again Bonaparte rested, and then continued:

"The lake of melted stone rose in the crater, it swelled higher and
highe