"I fear that you will find escape impossible," said Walter.
"Impossible! there's not such a word in my grammar. To men with quick brain and strong arm there's nothing impossible!" cried Denis. "I shall certainly make an attempt to get off, and if the ruffians murder me, I'll just see what vengeance the English will take! Don't you feel a thirst for revenge?" he asked, turning with clenched hand towards Walter.
"The only revenge for which I thirst, is to see these fierce robbers transformed into civilised Christians," was the young man's reply.
"As well might tigers be transformed into lambs! Such changes can never be!" exclaimed Denis.
"Such changes have been, and may be again," said the missionary's son. "To One who is all-wise and all-powerful too, there is nothing impossible—even an Afghan's conversion!" Walter turned and gazed through the aperture on the glittering stars in the deep blue sky, and added, though not aloud, "Such changes will be, though the time may be far distant, for it is written in the Word of Truth, The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."
CHAPTER X.
CONSCIENCE AWAKENED.
"This is the Lord's Day," said Walter, with a touch of sadness in his tone as he rose on the following morning from his comfortless resting-place on the bare and dirty floor.
"Sunday, is it, only Sunday?" exclaimed Denis; "I feel as if weeks had passed since we started on our luckless expedition. If we measured time by misery, we might count the days as years! What a different Sunday this will be from those I once enjoyed!"
The same thought was passing through the mind of Walter. Each of the young men was thinking of scenes that might never again meet their eyes. Before Walter came the image of the small native church, with the little band of Christians whom his father had been the instrument of gathering from the heathen around them. In fancy, Walter heard the tinkling bell that summoned to worship; then the hymn, not very harmonious, but so heartily sung that it warmed the listener's heart. The image of his father, pale, thin, prematurely grey, but with heaven's own peace on his face, rose before the mind's eye of the youth; Walter could almost hear the accents, not strong, but thrilling, which told of the unspeakable bliss of the bright abode upon whose threshold he stood. Walter could not suppress a sigh.