d
no use for religion. He was very well satisfied with his own way of
living. He objected to being prayed over and the good of his soul
inquired into--but this Parson Rasba was making the idea interesting.

They anchored for the night in the eddy at the head of Needham's Cut-Off
Bar, and Prebol was soon asleep, but Rasba sat under the big lamp and
read. He could read with continuity now; dread that the dream would
vanish no longer afflicted him. He could read a book without having more
than two or three other books in his lap.

Sometimes it was almost as though Nelia were speaking the very words he
read; sometimes he seemed to catch her frown of disapproval. The books,
more precious than any other treasure could have been, seemed living
things because she had owned them, because her pencil had marked them,
and because she had given them all to his service, to fill the barren
and hungry places in the long-empty halls of his mind.

He would stop his reading to think, and thinking, he would take up a
book to discover better how to think. He found that his reading and
thinking worked together for his own information.

He was musing, his mind enjoying the novelty of so many different images
and ideas and facts, when something trickled among his senses and
stirred his consciousness into alert expectancy. For a little he was
curious, and then touched by dismay, for it was music which had roused
him--music out of the black river night. People about to die sometimes
hear music, and Parson Rasba unconsciously braced himself for the
shock.

It grew louder, however, more distinct, and the sound was too gay and
lively to fit in with his dreams of a heavenly choir. He caught the
shout of a human voice and he knew that dancers were somewhere, perhaps
dancers damned to eternal mirth. He went out on the deck and closed the
door on the light behind him; at first he could see nothing but black
night. A little later he discovered boats coming down the river, eight
or nine gleaming windows, and a swinging light hung on a flag staff or
shanty-boat mast.

As they drew nearer, someone shouted across the night:

"Goo-o-o-d wa-a-a-ter thar?"

"Ya-s-su-uh!" Rasba called back.

"Where'll we come in?"

"Anywhere's b'low me fo' a hundred yards!"

"Thank-e-e!"

Three or four sweeps began to beat the water, and a whole fleet of
shanty-boats drifted in slowly. They began to turn like a wheel as part
of them ran into the eddy while the c