y throw a little light on the
mystery.'

"'Have patience, then, and let me tell my story my own way. The getting
into the labyrinth was a trifle in comparison to the getting out.
Believe me, the tales of romance are nothing to the tremendous horrors
of that march. Why do you look incredulous?'

"'You know your love of the marvellous, Gilbert--but go on; only don't
out-Herod Herod in your description.'

"'There is no danger of that--no description can come up to the truth. I
looked upon that whole army in the desert as destined to make their
next general parade in the heavens--and fancied you would see our poor,
unhappy apparitions gliding through the sky; and, perhaps, exclaim,
'Poor Gilbert; he died in the good cause at last. It seems, however, that
the necessity is spared of my making so pathetic an apostrophe. You had
the good fortune to escape.'

'It was little less than a miracle that we did so, I assure you,'
replied Gilbert.

'Your preservation, then, should be a more convincing proof to your
mind, that the Lord is on our side, and will not forsake us in this
unequal strife.'

'Ah,' replied Lester, 'you may beat me in _faith_, Vincent, but I will
contend that I have beaten you in _works_. Had you waded, as we did,
through those hideous bogs, which a poor Irishman, whose bones we left
on the way, declared, 'bate all the bogs of Ireland!' you would have
said the Israelites in the wilderness had a happy time of it, compared
to us. Why, we were drowned, and starved, and frozen, till we had nearly
given up all hope of the honor of being shot.'

'But you forget that I am still in ignorance of the preceding causes,
which produced the revolution in your sentiments, and consequently
influenced your actions after I left the farm,' said Murray,
interrupting him.

"'You are right,' replied Gilbert; 'I am before my story. My head was
so completely filled with the images on the way, that I was obliged
to dispose of them first, ere I could clear a passage in my memory to
relate what came before. It would, however, require too much time, at
this moment, to enter into all the detail of argument and persuasion
that gradually undermined my first principles. My imagination was a
little excited by the whole scene at our last harvest festival. The
sudden interruption in the dancing by the singular phenomena in the
heavens, and the termination, from that evening, of all our accustomed
mirth and gaiety, made a strong impressi