However, as soon as the halt was made, I was glad to see that Moncrieff took every precaution against a surprise. The caravan was made the centre of a square, the waggons being 'laggered' around it. The fire was lit and the dinner cooked close beside a sheltering barranca, and as soon as this meal was discussed the fire was extinguished.
| 'Then came still evening on,' |
and we all gathered together for prayer. Even the Gauchos were summoned, though I fear paid but little attention, while Moncrieff, standing bare-headed in the midst of us, read a chapter from the Book by the pale yellow light of the western sky. Then, still standing—
'Brothers, let us pray,' he said.
Erect there, with the twilight shadows falling around him, with open eyes and face turned skywards, with the sunset's after-glow falling on his hard but comely features, his plaid depending from his broad shoulders, I could not help admiring the man. His prayer—and it was but brief—had all the trusting simplicity of a little child's, yet it was in every way the prayer of a man communing with his God; in every tone thereof was breathed belief, reliance, gratitude, and faith in the Father.
As he finished, Dugald pressed my arm and pointed eastwards, smiling. A star had shone out from behind a 117 little cloud, and somehow it seemed to me as if it were an angel's eye, and that it would watch over us all the live-long night. Our evening service concluded with that loveliest of hymns, commencing—
| 'O God of Bethel, by whose hand Thy children still are fed; Who through this weary wilderness Hath all our fathers led.' |
He gave it out in the old Scotch way, two lines at a time, and to the tune 'Martyrdom.'
It was surely appropriate to our position and our surroundings, especially that beautiful verse—
| 'Oh, spread Thy covering wings around, Till all our wanderings cease, And at our Father's loved abode Our souls arrive in peace.' |