the north
end of the burying-ground. The figure, having run as it were in fear so
far forward, no sooner saw the projecting head of Aminadab, than it
turned and retreated. At the same instant Ady rose, as if disturbed, and
ran to the house. Yet the moaning did not cease. It seemed interminable;
or, if to be terminated by the absence of Ady, the sufferer did not know
she was gone. And oh, these wails!--Aminadab fled and took them along
with him, nor did they ever leave him.

Even when he went to bed they were fresh upon his ear, claiming
precedence to the vision of his eye; though that, too, asserted its
authority as something miraculous--whether the Eastern mystery itself,
or some tutelary genius brought from heaven by the shriek of man's
cruelty. Nor could he rest for the thought that, humble as he was, he
was surely taken there that he might go to the powers of earth to ask
them to aid the powers of heaven. Why, that Cradle had been built within
the limits of civilisation. Even the mason was known: the bricks were
not Egyptian bricks, nor the mortar foreign, nor the wood a tree from
the heart of Africa; and yet, why was it there--nay, why was the use of
it not inquired into? If Jeshurun had waxed fat and kicked against the
Lord of heaven, was there no lord of earth that could tame this
yellow-livered worshipper of Baal, who yet was received among the chiefs
of Israel to drink the pure juice of the grape, and make a god of his
belly, and to sing obscene songs? Even in that house there was riot and
debauchery upon the spoils of that woman, encaged like a beast, and at
the world's end from her natural protectors.

Yea, our good soul Aminadab became bold. He was privileged, if not
called. But then that Brahma--that incarnation of a power confessed by
millions on millions of people possessed of souls, and therefore
something in God's reckonings! It was no illusion. Twice he had seen the
mysterious being. How did he come hither to the Ultima Thule, as it
were, of the known world? Why did he come just at a juncture when the
daughter of a king of his own favoured people was immured in a dungeon,
and calling for his help? Because he must have known that a spark of the
spirit that belonged to him, and would go back to him, was threatened to
be extinguished by power in a land owing no obedience to him. But didn't
that same moon shine on the children of Brahma as well as on the
children of Christ? and were there no powers in he