aving replied to the wood-cutter's first inquiry that he was "going
yonder," Mamba now saw fit to explain that "yonder" meant Tamatave.

"I want to see the great Missionary Ellis before he leaves the country."

The wood-cutter shook his head. "You are too late, I fear. He passed
down to the coast some weeks ago. The Queen has ordered him to depart.
She is mad against all the praying people."

"Are _you_ one of the praying people?" asked Mamba, with direct
simplicity.

"Yes, and I know that _you_ are," answered the wood-cutter with a smile.

"How know you that?"

"Did I not see your lips move and your eyes look up when you approached
me on arriving?"

"True, I prayed to Jesus," said Mamba, "that I might be made use of to
help you, or you to help me."

"Then your prayer is doubly answered," returned the old man, "for we can
each help the other. I can give you food and lodging. You can carry a
message to Tamatave for me."

"That is well. I shall be glad to help you. What is your message?"

"It is a message to the missionary, Ellis, if you find him still there;
but even if he is gone you will find a praying one who can help me.
Long have I prayed to the lord that he would send one of his people here
to take my message. Some came who looked like praying people, but I was
afraid to ask them, and perhaps they were afraid to speak; for, as you
know, the Queen's spies are abroad everywhere now, and if they find one
whom they suspect of praying to Jesus they seize him and drag him away
to the ordeal of `tangena'--perhaps to torture and death. But now you
have come, and my prayer is answered. `He is faithful who has
promised.' Look here."

The old man went to a corner of the hut, and returned with two soiled
pieces of paper in his hand.

Sitting down, he spread them carefully on his knees. Mamba recognised
them at once as being two leaves out of a Malagasy Bible. Soiled, worn,
and slightly torn they were, from long and frequent use, but still
readable. On one of them was the twenty-third Psalm, which the old
wood-cutter began to read with slow and intense interest.

"Is it not grand," he said, looking up at his young guest with a flush
of joy in his care-worn old face, "to think that after this weary
wood-cutting is over we shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever?
No more toiling and hauling and splitting; above all, no more sin--
nothing but praise and work for Him. And how hard I could work fo