'For God's sake,' exclaimed Saul, 'for your mother's sake, who suffers now a grief as keen as yours, bear up! Dear friend, if I could lay down my life for you, I would!'
'I know it. You alone, and my mother, are true; all the rest of the world is false! He wished to get rid of me, did he, and this was a trap! The false lying dog! But when I meet him!---- See here! Here is the ticket he gave me. If I had him before me now, I would do to him as I do to this----'
He crumpled the paper in his hand, and tore it fiercely in twain. Saul caught his arm, and stayed its destruction.
'No, no, George!' he cried, but his cry was like a whisper. 'Don't destroy it! Give it, O, give it to me! Remember the letter that Jane wrote to me. Think of the future that is open to me, to her, unless I can see a way. The way is here! Here is my salvation! Let me go instead of you!' He fell upon his knee's and raised his hands tremblingly, as if the Death-Angel were before him, and he was not prepared. 'If I live, I will repay you, so help me, the Great God!'
George muttered, 'Take it. For me it is useless. May it bring you the happiness that I have lost!'
Saul kissed his friend's hand, which fell from his grasp. When he looked up, his friend was gone. And the light in the heavens that George could not see, shone on the face of the kneeling man.
[PART II.]
[THEY SAW, UPON ONE OF THE NEAREST PEAKS, A MAN STANDING, WITH SUNSET COLOURS ALL AROUND HIM.]
We are in the land of a thousand hills. Height is piled upon height, range upon range. The white crests of the mountains cut sharp lines in the clear cold air, and the few trees that are dotted about stand like sentinels on the watch. On one of the far heights, some trees, standing in a line, look like soldiers that have halted for rest; and the clumps of bush that lie in the valleys and on the sides of the hills are like wearied regiments sleeping.
In dear old England the roses are blooming, and the sun is shining; but here it is night, and snow-shadows rest on the mountains and gullies. Among the seemingly interminable ranges, ice-peaks glitter like diamond eyes. Round about us where we stand there is but little wood growth; but in the far distance, beyond the eye's reach, are forests of trees, from the branches of which garlands of icicles hang fantastically; and down in the depths the beautiful fern-leaves are rimmed with frosted snow. We are in the new world.