It is pathetic to hear the bitterness breaking through his "conferences," and not less so is the brave face he puts on in the preface to his Tamil Grammar. His conversions, it is to be feared, were even fewer than the number he gives, and of those assured, how many were from interested motives? Let those answer who have been missionaries in Oriental lands. With him the difficulty was the same that missionaries find at the present day, but he had not the means of judging which we now possess. When his heathen opponents acknowledged the folly and wickedness of their rites, he could not see why they should hesitate; but they were perfectly aware that their debased religion rested on as sound precepts as his, and, like his, was daily perverted from the truth. He made the great mistake of treating Brahmans as heathen.

It is one thing to attack the savage rites of a barbarous tribe, and another, the ingrained religious observances of a mighty and deep religion. Ziegenbalg could not get sight of those mysterious sacred books the priests spoke of, and which we now know as the Vedas, and therefore concluded that they were myths; he looked upon the Tamils as

low-grade savages, who allowed themselves to be imposed upon by the priests, while the latter juggled them with idols. What he said was partly true, but he did not know that the faithful inquirer, who penetrated at last into the arcana, discovered there the same great truths which underlay Ziegenbalg's faith; that was the knowledge he lacked, perhaps fortunately lacked, for it might have weakened that fiery energy of his, and the West would have been compelled to wait still longer for the Tamil Grammar.

Thus from two great nations, which issued, no one knows when, from some Central Asiatic region, no one knows where, came priests to the Tamil. The Brahmans came first, and Ziegenbalg found their work done. They had permitted idols, fostered the giving of sacrifices, reaped for themselves the benefits of appeals to charity, given the nation the kind of outward religion suited to their development. The Teutonic missionary arrived centuries later, and attempted to introduce among them a religion of the highest European stamp. It was as if he had come to Tranquebar with a cargo of hooks, and found in all Damulia no eyes.

CHAPTER XIII.

IN WHICH THE ARTFUL GABRIEL IS DISCOVERED.

NOTWITHSTANDING his assumed ease and a certain relief, which was real, Gabriel was far from being satisfied with the result of his visit to Mrs. Markle. Whatever may have actually occurred, not known to the reader except through Gabriel's own disclosure to Olly, Gabriel's manner hardly bore out the boldness and conclusiveness of his statement. For a day or two afterward, he resented any allusion to the subject from Olly, but on the third day he held a conversation with one of the Eureka Bar miners, which seemed to bear some remote reference to his experi

ence.

"Thar's a good deal said lately in the papers," began Gabriel, cautiously, "in regard to breach o' promise trials. Lookin' at it, by and large, thar don't seem to be much show for a feller ez hez been in enny ways kind to a gal, is thar?"

The person addressed, whom rumor declared to have sought One Horse Gulch as a place of refuge from his wife, remarked with an oath that women were blank fools anyway, and that on general principles they were not to be trusted.

"But thar must be a kind o' gin'ral law on the subject," urged Gabriel. "Now what would be your opinion if you was on a jury onto a case like this? It happened to a friend o' mine in Frisco," said Gabriel, with a marked parenthesis, "a man ez you don't know. Thar was a woman-we'll say a widder-ez had been kinder hangin' round him off and on for two or three year, and he hadn't allowed anything to her about marryin'. One day he goes down thar to her house, kinder easy-like, jest to pass the time o' day, and be sociable

"That's bad," interrupted the cynic. "Yes," said Gabriel, doubtingly, "p'r'aps it does look bad, but you see he didn't mean anythin'."

"Well?" said the adviser.

"Well! thet's all," said Gabriel. "All!" exclaimed his companion, indignantly.

"Yes, all. Now this woman kinder allows she'll bring a suit agin him to make him marry her."

"My opinion is," said the adviser, bluntly, "my opinion is that the man was a fool, and didn't tell ye the truth, nuther, and I'd give damages agin him, for being such a fool."

This opinion was so crushing to Gabriel that he turned hopelessly away. Nevertheless, in his present state of mind, he could not refrain from pushing his inquiries farther, and in a general conversation which took place at Briggs's store, in the afternoon, among a group of smokers, Gabriel artfully introduced the subject of courtship and marriage.

"Thar's different ways of getting at the feelins of a woman," said the oracular Johnson, after a graphic statement of his own method of ensnaring the affections of a former sweetheart, "thar's different ways jest as thar's different men and women in the world. One man's way won't do with some wimmen. But thar's one way ez is pretty sure to fetch 'em allers. That is, to play off indifferent-to never let on ye like 'em! To kinder look arter them in a gin'ral sort o' way, pretty much as Gabe thar looks arter the sick!-but not to say anythin' particler. To make them understand that they've got to do all the courtin', ef thar's enny to be done. What's the matter, Gabe, ye ain't goin' ?"

Gabriel, who had risen in great uneasiness, muttered something about "its being time to go home," and then sat down again, looking at Johnson in fearful fascination.

"That kind o' thing is pretty sure to fetch almost enny woman," continued Johnson, "and a man ez does it orter be looked arter. It orter be put down by law. It's tamperin', don't yer see, with the holiest affections. Sich a man orter be spotted whar'ever found."

"But mebbe the man don't mean anythin'-mebbe it's jest his way," suggested Gabriel ruefully, looking around in the faces. of the party, "mebbe he don't take to wimmen and marriage nat'ral, and it's jest his way."

ditch came in view on the hill beside him, and with it a revelation that in a twinkling displaced Mrs: Markle, and seemed almost to change the man's entire nature! What was it? Apparently nothing to the eye of the ordinary traveler. The dam was full, and through a cut-off the overplus water was escaping with a roar. Nothing more? Yes to an experienced eye the escaping water was not abating the quantity in the dam. Was that all? No! Half-way down the rudely constructed adobe bank of the dam, the water was slowly oozing and trickling through a slowly widening crevice, over the rocks above the gorge and stage road below! The wall of the dam was giving away!

To tear off coat and all impeding garments, to leap from rock to rock, and bowlder to bowlder, hanging on by slippery chimisal and the decayed roots of trees; to reach at the risk of life and limb the cañon below, and then to run at the highest speed to warn the incoming stage of the danger before it should enter the narrow gorge, was only the resolve and action of a brave man. But to do this without the smallest waste of strength that ought to be preserved, to do this with the greatest economy of force, to do this with the agility and skill of a mountaineer, and the reserved power of a giant; to do this with a will so simple, direct, and unhesitating, that the action appeared to have been planned and rehearsed days before, instead of being the resolution of the instant, this belonged to Gabriel Conroy! And to have seen him settle into a long swinging trot, and to have observed his calm, grave, earnest, but unexcited face, and quiet, steadfast eye, you would have believed him some healthy giant simply exercising himself.

He had not gone half a mile before his quick ear caught a dull sound and roar of advancing water. Yet even then he only slightly increased his steady stride, as if he had been quickened and followed by his trainer rather than by approaching Death. At the same moment there was a quick rattle and clatter in the road ahead-a halt, and turning back, for Gabriel's warning shout had run before him like a bullet. But it was too late. The roaring water behind him struck him and bore him down, and the next instant swept the coach and horses a confused, struggling, black mass, against the rocky walls of the cañon. And then it was that the immense reserved strength of Gabriel came into play. Set upon by the almost irresistible volume of water, he did VOL. XI.-24.

not waste his power in useless opposition, but allowed himself to be swept hither and thither until he touched a branch of chimisal that depended from the cañon side. Seizing it with one sudden and mighty effort, he raised himself above the sweep and suction of the boiling flood. The coach was gone; where it had stood a few black figures struggled, swirled, and circled. One of them was a woman. In an instant Gabriel plunged into the yellow water. A few strokes brought him to her side; in another moment he had encircled her waist with his powerful arm and lifted her head above the surface, when he was seized by two despairing arms from the other side. Gabriel did not shake them off. "Take hold of me lower down and I'll help ye both," he shouted, as he struck out with his only free arm for the chimisal. He reached it; drew himself up so that he could grasp it with his teeth, and then, hanging on by his jaw, raised his two clinging companions beside him. They had barely grasped it, when another ominous roar was heard below, and another wall of yellow water swept swiftly up the cañon. The chimisal began to yield to their weight. Gabriel dug his fingers into the soil about its roots, clutched the jagged edges of a rock beneath, and threw his arm about the woman, pressing her closely to the face of the wall. As the wave swept over them, there was a sudden despairing cry, a splash, and the man was gone. Only Gabriel and the woman

Even at that critical moment some occult quality of sweetness in her voice thrilled him.

"Lock your hands together hard, and sling 'em over my neck."

She did so. Gabriel freed his right hand. He scarcely felt the weight thus suddenly thrown upon his shoulders, but cautiously groped for a projection on the rock above. He found it, raised himself by a supreme effort, until he secured a foothold in the hole left by the uprooted chimisal bush. Here he paused.

"Kin ye hang on a minnit longer?"
"Go on," she said.
Gabriel went on.

He found another pro