But a curse came in good earnest two days later.  The terror of that has never left me.  I saw a man die who loved me better than his honor or his God.  He refused, dying, to give me back to the man from whom he had stolen me.  The priest who stood by his bed implored him.  He refused and the priest turned from him without saying the words of absolution.  When the chill came on him he hissed and spit at us, and croaked his curses, but the death rattle kept choking them back into him, only to have him vomit them into our faces again and again till he died.  The priest came back and looked at him.

“Poor fool!” he said to him, but to me and my companions he said:  “You sent him to Hell.”

Ah!  What a power that was, but while I rejoiced in it I was not glad enough.  He could have conquered had he only willed it.  I knew he was my master long before I mastered him.

His dissipated and drunken children fought for us beside his very bed.  I was wrenched from one hand to the other, falling upon the dirty floor to be trampled on again and again.  When the fight ended I was torn and filthy, so that, patched and ugly, my next master sent me back to the great capital to be changed; to have the artists work again on me and restore my beauty.  They did it well, but no artist could give me new life.

Again I went forth and fell into the hands of a good man.  I knew he was good when I heard him speak to me and to those who were with me.  “God has blessed me,” he said, “with riches and knowledge and strength, but I am only His steward.  This money like all the rest shall be spent in His service.”  Then we were sent out, thousands of us, returning again and again, splitting into great and small parties, but all coming and going hither and thither on errands of mercy.

Now I felt my love of doing return.  Never did I now see a tear that I did not dry.  Never did I hear a sigh that I did not change to a laugh; never a wound that I did not heal; never a pain that I did not soothe; nor a care I did not lighten.  Where the sick were found, I visited them; where the poor were, I bought them bread.  Out on the plains and in the desert I lifted the Cross of Hope and the Chalice of Salvation.  To the dying I sped the Minister of Pardon.  Into the darkness and the shadow of death I sent the Light of love and hope and truth, till, rich in the deeds of mercy I did in my master’s name, I felt the call to another deathbed—­his own.  I saw my companions flying from the bounds of the great earth to answer the call.  They knew he needed them now with the rich interest of good deeds they had won for him.  Fast they came and the multitude of them filled him with wonder.  The enemy who hated him pointed to them in derision.  “Gold buys hell, not heaven,” he laughed, but we stood around the bed and the enemy could not pass us.  Then we, and deeds we did for him at his command, began to pray and the prayer was like sweetest music echoing against the very vault of heaven;