Once more he meditated; then heaved his big shoulders to let slip the
whole burden.

"One day at a time," he laughed. "Thank you for telling us.--You see,
Mr. Hackh, they're not devils. The only fault is, they're just human
beings. You don't speak the language? I'll send you my old teacher."

They talked of things indifferent; and when the young men were stumbling
along the streets, he called after them a resounding "Good-night!
Thanks!"--and stood a resolute, gigantic silhouette, filling, as a right
Doone filled their doorframe, the entrance to his deserted chapel.

At his gate, felt Rudolph, they had unloaded some weight of
responsibility. He had not only accepted it, but lightened them further,
girt them, by a word and a look. Somehow, for the first time since
landing, Rudolph perceived that through this difficult, troubled,
ignorant present, a man might burrow toward a future gleam. The feeling
was but momentary. As for Heywood, he still marched on grimly, threading
the stuffed corridors like a man with a purpose.

"No dinner!" he snapped. "Catchee bymby, though. We must see Wutzler
first. To lose sight of any man for twenty-four hours, nowadays,--Well,
it's not hardly fair. Is it?"

They turned down a black lane, carpeted with dry rubbish. At long
intervals, a lantern guttering above a door showed them a hand's-breadth
of the dirty path, a litter of broken withes and basket-weavers' refuse,
between the mouldy wall of the town and a row of huts, no less black and
silent. In this greasy rift the air lay thick, as though smeared into