nto an abyss of
something like fierce despair when he recalled the past surveyed the
present, and forecast the future. Truly, if hell ever does begin to men
on earth, it began that day to the pirate, as he sat in the twilight on
the gnarled root, with one of his feet dangling in the slimy water, his
hands clasped so tight that the knuckles stood out white, and his eyes
gazing upwards with an expression that seemed the very embodiment of
woe.

Then his spirit lost its spring, and he began to crawl, in memory, on
the shores of "other days." He thought of the days when, comparatively
innocent he rambled on the sunny hills of old England; played and did
mischief with comrades; formed friendships and fought battles, and knew
what it was to experience good impulses; understood the joy of giving
way to these, as well as the depression consequent on resisting them;
and recalled the time when he regarded his mother as the supreme judge
in every case of difficulty--the only comforter in every time of sorrow.

At this point his spirit grovelled like a crushed worm in the stagnant
pool of his despair, for he had no hope. He had sinned every
opportunity away. He had defied God and man, and nothing was left to
him, apparently, save "a fearful looking-for of judgment."

As he bent over the pool he saw his own distorted visage dimly reflected
therein, and the thought occurred,--"Why not end it all at once? Five
minutes at the utmost and all will be over!" The pirate was a
physically brave man beyond his fellows. He had courage to carry the
idea into effect but--"after death the judgment!" Where had he heard
these words? They were strange to him, but they were not new. Those
who are trained in the knowledge of God's Word are not as a general
rule, moved in an extraordinary degree by quotations from it. It is
often otherwise with those who have had little of it instilled into them
in youth and none in later years. That which may seem to a Christian
but a familiar part of the "old, old story," sometimes becomes to
hundreds and thousands of human beings a startling revelation. It was
so to the pirate on this occasion. The idea of judgment took such a
hold of him that he shrank from death with far more fear than he ever
had, with courage, faced it in days gone by. Trembling, terrified,
abject he sat there, incapable of consecutive thought or intelligent
action.

At last the gloom which had been slowly deepening over the s