ankfulness that this undoubtedly caused him were
diminished by the fact that he was in total darkness, and at the bottom
of a hole of unknown depth. A feeling of horror rushed over him at the
thought of being thus, as it were, buried alive. Springing up, he felt
all round the walls of his prison for some inequalities or projections,
by which he might climb out, but none such could he find. The place was
like a well of not more than about ten feet wide, with smooth rocky
sides, which were almost perpendicular as far up as he could reach. On
looking upward, he could see the mouth of the hole, through which he had
fallen, glimmering like a little star above him.

After a fruitless search of nearly half-an-hour the poor man sat down on
a piece of fallen rock, over which he had stumbled several times in his
search, and a deep groan burst from him as he began to realise the fact
that escape from the place was impossible, and that a lingering death
awaited him--for he could scarcely hope that his companions would find
him in such a place. Hope, however, is hard to kill in the human
breast. Perhaps they might hear him if he shouted. Immediately he
began to shout for help with all the strength of his lungs. Then, as no
answering shout came down from the little star above--at which he
continuously gazed--a feeling of wild despair took possession of him,
and he yelled and shrieked in mortal agony until his vocal chords
refused to act, and nothing but a hoarse whisper passed his parched
lips. Overcome at last, alike with horror and exhaustion, he fell to
the ground and became partially unconscious.

How long he lay thus he could not tell; but, on recovering and looking
up, he found that the star was gone--telling plainly that night had set
in.

Then it was, when all hope of delivering himself, or of being delivered
by others, had fled, that a word which had been uttered by Dr Hayward
to a dying man on board the ship, leaped into John Mitford's mind like a
gleam of light. "Call upon Me in the time of trouble and I will deliver
thee, and thou shalt glorify Me." He had seen this invitation accepted
by the dying man and deliverance obtained--if a happy smile and a
triumphant gaze across the river of death were to be regarded as
testimony. "But, then," thought John Mitford, "that was spiritual
deliverance. Here it is a hard physical fact, from which nothing short
of a miracle can deliver me. No--it is impossible!"

Was