'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.'

'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.

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 half hidden by a small belt of brushwood, a group of officers, and I could hear them laughing.

'Is that an Indian cry, Springfield?' some one said.

'Yes, there's a legend that it is always heard the night before there's a kind of vendetta.'

Springfield's voice reached us quite clearly, and I looked instinctively towards Paul Edgecumbe.

'I know that voice! I know it!' and the intensity of his feeling was manifested in every word he spoke.