WE MOUNT THE CLIFF "May the gracious blessing of the Lord rest upon you, Geoffrey Benteen," exclaimed the old Puritan fervently, as we faced each other in that gloomy passage, and it somehow heartened me to note tears in his gray eyes.

There was heart, then, under all his crabbedness.

"I have suffered much of late both in spirit and flesh, and the very sight of you is as a gift of mercy unto me.

No angel with healing in his wings could prove more welcome, yet I dislike leaving yonder food for the sustenance of that foul idolater." "You hunger then ?" I questioned, amused at the regret with which he glanced backward.
"Is it hungered you call a man who has had but two dry bones to pick since yester-noon ?" he groaned, pressing both hands upon his stomach.
"I am lean as the Egyptian kine, and fain would welcome even locusts and wild honey." "Well, friend," I insisted firmly, "if you follow, within fifteen minutes you shall partake of a meal equalling that left behind.

I myself know well what a long fast means." "'T is truly a grievous affliction, difficult to sustain in meekness of spirit," he admitted, yet ever keeping me close company through the increasing darkness of descent; "yet more am I distressed by the loss of all spiritual nurture amid these wild heathen.