by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, there is a piece,
`Uncle Daniel's Apparition and Prayer', so similar to `The Power of Prayer'
that I quote it almost entire. Uncle Dan'l (a Negro), his wife,
his young mistress, and his two young masters were sitting on a log
by the Mississippi River one moonlight night a-talking.
"Suddenly Uncle Dan'l exclaimed: `Chil'en, dah's sumfin a comin'!'

"All crowded close together and every heart beat faster.
Uncle Dan'l pointed down the river with his bony finger.

"A deep coughing sound troubled the stillness, way toward a wooded cape
that jutted into the stream a mile distant. All in an instant
a fierce eye of fire shot out from behind the cape and sent
a long brilliant pathway quivering athwart the dusky water. The coughing
grew louder and louder, the glaring eye grew larger and still larger,
glared wilder and still wilder. A huge shape developed itself
out of the gloom, and from its tall duplicate horns dense volumes of smoke,
starred and spangled with sparks, poured out and went tumbling away
into the farther darkness. Nearer and nearer the thing came,
till its long sides began to glow with spots of light
which mirrored themselves in the river and attended the monster
like a torch-light procession.

"`What is it? Oh! what is it, Uncle Dan'l?'

"With deep solemnity the answer came:

"`It's de Almighty! Git down on yo' knees!'

"It was not necessary to say it twice. They were all kneeling in a moment.