They strained their eyes.  A man beside Taffy declared he could see something—­the faint glow of a binnacle lamp as she stood away.  Taffy could see nothing.  The voice ahead began to speak again.  The Vicar, pausing now and again to make sure of his path, was reading from a page which he held close to his lantern.

     “Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty:  they shall behold
      the land that is very far off.

     “Thou shalt not see a fierce people, a people of a deeper speech
      than thou canst perceive; of a stammering tongue that thou
      canst not understand.

     “But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad
      rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars,
      neither shall gallant ship pass thereby.

     “For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord
      is our king; he will save us.

     “Thy tacklings are loosed; they could not well strengthen their
      mast, they could not spread the sail; then is the prey of a
      great spoil divided; the lame take the prey.”

Here the Vicar turned back a page, and his voice rang higher: 

     “Behold a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall
      rule in judgment.

     “And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a
      covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as
      the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.

     “And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of
      them that hear shall hearken.”

Now Taffy walked behind, thinking his own thoughts; for the cheers of those invisible sailors had done more than thrill his heart.  A finger, as it were, had come out of the night and touched his brain, unsealing the wells and letting in light upon things undreamt of.  Through the bright confusion of this sudden vision the Vicar’s sentences sounded and fell on his ears unheeded.  And yet while they faded that happened which froze and bit each separate word into his memory, to lose distinctness only when death should interfere, stop the active brain, and wipe the slate.

For while the procession halted and broke up its formation for a moment on the brow of the cliff, a woman came running into the torchlight.

“Is my Joey there?  Where’s he to, anybody?  Hev anyone seen my Joey?”

It was Lizzie Pezzack, panting and bareheaded, with a scared face.

“He’s lame—­you’d know en.  Have ’ee got en there?  He’s wandered off!”

“Hush up, woman,” said a bearer.  “Don’t keep such a pore!”

“The cheeld’s right enough somewheres,” said another. “’Tis a man’s body we’ve got.  Stand out of the way, for shame!”

But Lizzie, who as a rule shrank away from men and kept herself hidden, pressed nearer, turning her tragical face upon each in turn.  Her eyes met George’s, but she appealed to him as to the others.