Jesus, forgetting ‘is Bible an’ his prayers; what can you expect?  And now I ask you, my friends, is Jesus a-keeping you?  And if he is not, oh, my friends, ain’t it foolish to put off any longer?  ’Ere we are met together to-night; we may never all meet together again.  You and I may never ’ear each other speaking again or see each other sitting there.  Thank God,” the speaker continued, as his eye rested on Arnold and Lindsay, “the vilest sinner may be saved, the respectable sinner may be saved.  We’ve got God’s word for that.  Now just a little word of prayer from Ensign Sand ’ere—­she’s got God’s ear, the Ensign ’as, and she’ll plead with ’im for all unconverted souls inside these four walls to-night.”

Laura lifted her head at this and dropped with the other exhorters on her knees on the floor.  As she moved she bent upon the audience a preoccupied gaze, by which she seemed to observe numbers, chances, from a point remote and emotionally involved.  Lindsay’s impression was that she looked at him as from behind a glass door.  Then her eyes closed as the other woman began, and through their lids, as it were, he could see that she was again caught up, though her body remained abased, her hands interlocked between her knees, swaying in unison with the petition.  The Ensign was a little, meagre, freckled woman, whose wisps of colourless hair and tight drawn-down lips suggested that in the secular world she would have been bedraggled and a nagger.  She gained an elevation, it was plain, from the Bengali dress; it kept her away from the temptation of cheap plush and dirty cotton lace; and her business gave her a complacency which was doubtless accepted as sanctification by her fellow-officers, especially by her husband, who had announced her influence with the Divine Being, and who was himself of an inferior commission.  She prayed in a complaining way, and in a strained minor key that assumed a spiritual intimacy with all who listened, her key to hearts.  She told the Lord in confidence that however appearances might be against it, every soul before him was really longing to be gathered within His Almighty arms, and when she said this, Laura Filbert, on the floor, threw back her head and cried “Hallelujah!” and Duff started.  The others broke in upon the Ensign with like exclamations.  They had a recurrent, perfunctory sound, and passed unnoticed; but when Laura again cried “Praise the Lord!” Lindsay found himself holding in check a hasty impulse to leave the premises.  Then she rose, and he watched with the Duke’s Own, to see what she would do next.  The others looked at her too, as she stood surprisingly fair and insistant among them, Ensign Sand with humble eyes and disapproving lips.  As she began to speak the silence widened for her words, the ship’s cook stopped shuffling his feet.  “Oh come,” she said, “Come and be saved.”  Her voice seemed to travel from her without effort, and to penetrate every corner and every consciousness.  There was a sudden dip