send the blush
of shame even upon your hardened features, that your soul, deadened as
it now is to every good and holy impulse, will become softened and
tender by repentance. Your language, too, will be changed, and good and
prayerful words take place of those daring and blasphemous expressions
which now disgrace your lips. You are brutal and overbearing, because
you are strong; you will become mild and gentle when you are deprived of
that strength. Now your heart scoffs at the very mention of repentance,
but the day will come when, bowed to the earth with deep contrition, you
will bewail your victims in dust and ashes. You have degraded the
intelligence placed within you by a supreme power,--you have reduced it
to the brutal instincts of rapine and murder; from a man formed after
the image of his Creator, you have made yourself a beast of prey: one
day, as I trust and believe, that intelligence will be purified by
remorse and rendered again guiltless through divine expiation. You, more
inhuman than the beast which perisheth, have trampled on the tender
feelings by which even animals are actuated,--you have been the
destroyer of your partner and your offspring. After a long life,
entirely devoted to the expiation of your crimes, you may venture to
implore of the Almighty the great though unmerited happiness of
obtaining the pardon of your wife and son, and dying in their presence."

As Rodolph uttered these last words his voice trembled with emotion, and
he was obliged to conclude.

The Schoolmaster's terrors had, during this long discourse, entirely
yielded to an opinion that he was only to be subjected to a long lecture
on morality, and so forth, and then discharged upon his own promise of
amendment; for the many mysterious words uttered by Rodolph he looked
upon as mere vague expressions intended to alarm him,--nothing more.
Still further reassured by the mild tone in which Rodolph had addressed
him, the ruffian assumed his usually insolent air and manner as he said,
bursting into a loud and vulgar laugh:

"Well done, upon my word! A very good sermon, and very well spoken! Only
we must recollect where we leave off in our moral catechism, that we may
begin all right next lesson day. Come, let us have something lively now.
What do you say, master; will you guess a charade or two, just to
enliven us a bit?"

Instead of replying, Rodolph addressed the black doctor:

"Proceed, David! And if I do wrong, may the Almigh