"Brother, brother, your feet go downwards to the pit. A wastrel, a lover of vanities, how can you be the pastor of our Bethesda? Take heed lest you stumble, for soon the eyes of all shall be open to your iniquity."
As the missionary departed, he cast a look over his shoulder, and saw the unhappy minister sink back in his chair with a look of pain. But Brand, in his Pharisaical uprightness, had no pity for the man or for his position. "As he has sown, so shall he reap," muttered he, and dismissed the matter from his mind. He quite forgot that other text, "Bear ye one another's burdens;" yet had he remembered, he would have misapplied it, as he did all other sayings of the Christ whom he professed to follow.
In the meantime he searched for Finland, and found him on the stone jetty, smoking and jesting with some fishermen. When Brand appeared, the young sailor turned his back on him, for he had no love for a half-baked missionary. But Korah, who had the pertinacity of a fanatic, was not to be put off so easily.
"John Finland, come with me. I have need of you."
"Need'll have to be your master then," sneered Jack. "I've more to do than gavort round with psalm-singing critters."
Brand seized the young man's shoulders with a grasp like a pair of pincers. "It is about Bithiah," he said, sourly.
"I don't know any girl of that name."
"She was Tera, when in the bonds of sin."
"Tera!" Jack led the missionary aside, and looked at him with a frown on his handsome face. "And what may you have to say about Tera, Mister Missionary?"
"Where is she, John Finland?"