"Speak out! Don't snuffle," exclaimed another.

"Tip us your tale," cried a fourth.

"Go on. Go on. We're waiting," called many more.

These impatient cries at last aroused David from his waking dream, he drew his hand over his eyes, and began his story.

For a time the strange narrative produced a profound impression. Heads drooped as if in meditation upon the mystery and meaning of life; significant glances were exchanged; tears trembled in many eyes; these torpid natures received a shock which for a moment awakened them to a new life.

But it was only for a moment. They were incapable of the sustained effort of thought, of ambition, or of will. Impressions made upon their souls were like those made on the soft folds of a garment by the pa.s.sing touch of a hand.

To their besotted perceptions this scene was like a play in a Bowery theater, and now that the dramatic denouement had come, they lost their interest and sauntered away singly or in little groups. In a few moments there were only three figures left in the light of the flaming torch, They were those of the lumberman, David, and Mantel, who now drew near, took his friend by the hand and pressed it with a gentle sympathy.

"Where did you come from?" asked David in surprise, as he for the first time recognized his companion.

"I have followed you all the evening," Mantel replied.

"Then you have heard the story of this book?"

"I have, and I could not have believed it without hearing."

"Can you spare us a little of your time?" said David, turning to the lumberman.

"I owe you all the time you wish and all the service I can render," he replied.

"You have more than paid your debt by what you have done for me to-night, but who are you?"

"I am only another voice crying in the wilderness."

"Is this your only business in life--to speak to the outcast and the wretched as you did to-night?"

"This is all."

David looked his admiration.

"How do you support yourself?" asked Mantel, to whom such a man was a phenomenon.

"We do not any of us support ourselves so much as we are supported," he replied.

"And this life of toil and self-denial had its origin in those words I spoke in the empty lumber camp?" asked David, incredulously.

"It is not a life of self-denial, but that was its beginning."

"It is a mystery. I lost my faith and you found it, and now perhaps you are going to give it back again!" David said.

The lumberman turned his searching eyes kindly on Mantel's face and said, "And how is it with thee, my friend; hast thou the peace of G.o.d?"

The directness of the question startled the gambler. "I have, no peace of any kind; my heart is full of storms and my life is a ruin," he answered sadly.

"Did thee never notice," said the lumberman gently, "how nature loves to reclaim a ruin?"

"In what way?"

"By covering it with vines and moss."

The unexpected nature of this answer and the implied encouragement produced a deep impression on the mind of the gambler, but he answered:

"I shall never be reclaimed. I have gone too far. I have often tried to find the true way of life, and prayed for a single glimpse of light!

Have you ever heard how Zeyd used to spend hours leaning against the wall of the Kaaba and praying, 'Lord, if I knew in what manner thou wouldst have me adore thee, I would obey thee; but I do not! Oh! give me light!' I have prayed that prayer with all that agony, but, to me, the universe is dark as h.e.l.l!"

"There is light enough! It is eyes we need!" said the evangelist.

"Light! Who has it? Many think they have, but it is mere fancy. They mistake the shining of rotten wood for fire!"

"And sometimes men have walked in the light without seeing it, as fish swimming in the sea and birds flying in the air, might say, 'Where is the sea?' 'Where is the air?'"

"But what comfort is it, if there is light, and I cannot see it? There might as well be no light at all!"

"The bird never knows it has wings until it tries them! We see, not by looking for our eyes, but by looking out of them. We say of a little child that it has to 'find its legs.' Some men have to find their eyes."

"It is an art, then, to see?"

"I would even call it a trick, if I dared."

"Can you impart that capacity and teach that art?"

"No, it must be acquired by each man for himself. We can only tell others 'we see.'"

"I only know that I wish I could see!"

"We see by faith."

"And what is faith?"

"It is a power of the soul as much higher than reason as reason is higher than sense."

"Some men may possess such power, but I do not."

"You at least have an imagination."

"Yes."

"Well, faith is but the imagination spiritualized."

Mantel regarded the man who spoke in these terse and pregnant sentences with astonishment. "This," said he, "is not the same language in which you addressed the people in the Battery. This is the language of a philosopher! Do all lumbermen in the west speak thus?"

The evangelist began to reply, but was interrupted by David, who now burst out in a sudden exclamation of joy and grat.i.tude. He had been too busy with reflections and memories to partic.i.p.ate actively in the conversation, for this startling incident had disclosed to him the whole slow and hidden movement of the providence of his life towards this climax and opportunity. He was profoundly moved by a clear conviction that a divine hand must have planned and superintended this whole web of events, and had intentionally led him from contemplating the tragic issue of his sinful deeds and desires, to this vision of the good he had done in the better moments of his life. This strange coincidence, to a mind like his, could leave no room for doubt that the hand of G.o.d was on him, and that, after all, he had been neither abandoned nor forgotten.

The lumberman had been sent at this critical moment to save him! There was still hope!