“Massa!”
Hernando turned absently toward his questioner and did not notice that Eletheer’s chair was empty.
Reuben waited a few seconds and then said softly,—“Massa, we can’t take de Kingdom of Hebben by sto’m.”
“You’re right, of course, Reuben,” Hernando answered, giving himself a mental shake. “I’m afraid I’m a poor soldier anyway.”
“’Scuse me, Massa, mebbe yo’se done been fightin’ undah de wrong Cap’n; an’ mebbe agin taint no use fightin’ nohow; jes’ let de Kingdom ob Hebben take yo’.”
Hernando leaned slightly nearer, and Reuben went on,—“Now taint no makin’ b’lieve ’bout dis gibin’ up, like dem po’ sinnahs what hollahs amen, ’thout takin’ de mo’nah’s bench. Hit’s got ’o be a willin’ sacrifice. We mus’ git right down on our knees an’ hollah f’um de bery bottom ob de hea’t,—‘Oh, Lawdy, Lawdy, hyah am eberyt’ing I got in dis wo’l ’thout no stipylations!’ Den we mus’ trus’ de good Lawd an’ be glad to trabel back to de fo’cks of de road; an’ w’en dis trablin’ do seem like hit aint neber goin’ to en’, we must ’member de promise: ‘God am a bery present frien’ in time ob need.’”
Hernando’s face twitched as he looked at Reuben. What did he see? An old black man? The vision belonged to Hernando alone; he seemed to hear a clock strike “I! II!” Hear the soft crackle of dying embers on the hearth in a room filled with shadows, feel a trembling old hand press his own in sympathy while they two “made sacrifice.” Was his sacrifice “willing,” was he glad to go to Shushan and had he remembered the “promise”? And yet in those six years he thought he had “worked out” his “own salvation,” found the secret of happiness, sounded the doctrine of trust, drawn the specifications for a useful life in which the old world had no part. Yes, only thought; for that old world kept calling, calling—and oh it was like sweet music in his ears!
“Just let the Kingdom of Heaven take you.”
What else had he been doing for years, Hernando thought.
“Have you submitted those specifications?”