“Well, conscience or no conscience, I’ve resisted it all my life,” returned the sick man, “an’ it do seem a mean, sneakin’ sort o’ thing to come to the Almighty at the very last moment, when I can’t help myself, an’ say, ‘I’m sorry.’”
“It would be meaner to say ‘I’m not sorry,’ wouldn’t it?” returned Grummidge. “But, now I think of it, Master Burns did read one or two things out o’ that writin’ that he’s so fond of, which he says is the Word of God. If it’s true what he says, he may well be fond of it, but I wonder how he has found that out. Anyway, I remember that one o’ the things he read out of it was that the Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world; an’ he explained that Jesus is the Lamb of God, an’ that he stands in our place—takes our punishment instead of us, an’ fulfils the law instead of us.”
The sick man listened attentively, even eagerly, but shook his head.
“How can any man stand in my place, or take my punishments?” he said, in a tone savouring almost of contempt. “As far as I can see, every man will have enough to do to answer for himself.”
“That’s just what come into my mind too, when I heard Master Burns speak,” returned the other; “but he cleared that up by explainin’ that Jesus is God as well as man—‘God with us,’ he said.”
“That do seem strange,” rejoined the sick man, “and if true,” he added thoughtfully, “there’s somethin’ in it, Grummidge, somethin’ in it to give a man comfort.”
“Well, mate, I’m of your mind about that, for if God himself be for us, surely nobody can be agin us,” said the seaman, unconsciously paraphrasing the word of Scripture itself. “Blow high or blow low, that seems to me an anchor that you an’ me’s safe to hang on to.”
The conversation was interrupted at this point by the sudden entrance of Jim Heron with an arrow sticking in the fleshy part of his back.
“Attacked by savages!” he gasped. “Here, Grummidge, lend a hand to haul out this—I can’t well reach it. They came on us behind the big store, t’other side o’ the settlement, and, after lettin’ fly at us took to their heels. The lads are after them. I got separated from the boys, and was shot, as you see, so I came—hah! pull gently, Grummidge—came back here that you might haul it out, for it’s hard to run an’ fight with an arrow in your back.”
“Stay here, Jim,” said Grummidge, after hastily extracting the shaft. “You couldn’t do much with a wound like that. I’ll take your place and follow up the men, and you’ll take mine here, as nurse to Swinton. We mustn’t leave him alone, you know.”