lose up to the secretaries,
who seemed for the moment to gaze down upon him with a look of sympathy
on their faces, he set fire to it and burned it to ashes. In this way
it passed into the hands of the god, who would speedily set in motion
unseen machinery to bring down upon the head of the guilty one the
judgments which had just been invoked.

The sympathies of the crowd were with the man who had sworn a solemn
oath that he was innocent of the theft. The other young fellow, who
had said little or nothing during the proceedings, was believed to be
the real culprit, but there was no evidence upon which he could be
convicted. The god knew, however, and every one was satisfied that in
due time punishment would descend upon the transgressor.

In a few minutes the temple resumed its normal aspect, for with the
disappearance of the two principal actors in the scene, the idlers from
the street slowly dispersed, each one loudly expressing his opinion as
to the merits of the question in dispute. With the dissolving of the
crowd, it would have seemed to the casual observer that no further
proceedings were to be taken in the matter. The god's face wore its
usually placid look, unmoved by the shifting panorama of human life
which ebbed and flowed in front of him from morning till night. The
ghastly-looking policemen, with their grinning visages and ferocious
scowls and contorted bodies, remained in the same unchanging postures
by the main entrance.

A week or two had gone by since the appeal had been made to the god,
when those who were following the case and were looking out for some
grim evidence that the god was at work in bringing retribution on the
man whom everyone suspected of being the thief, were startled by a
heartrending catastrophe.

This man had a sister, just bursting into womanhood, who was the very
light of her home. Her merry laugh could be heard throughout the day,
so that sadness could not long abide in the same house. Her face, too,
seemed to have been formed to match her sunny smiles, and was a
constant inspiration that never failed to give those who looked upon it
a brighter view of life.

One morning she went down to the river-bank with several of her
neighbours to do the household washing. The stream was strong and
rapid in the centre, but the place which these women had selected for
their work had always been considered perfectly safe, for it was
outside the current and no accident had ever h